| Joe O'Blenis will call this one a learning experience. On Aug. 27, on the waters of the Peace River in northern B.C., the 37-year-old from Kamloops tried to break the world record for distance paddled in a kayak in 24 hours. O'Blenis didn't make it past 349 kilometres, which was the mark set in 1998 by Ian Adamson of Boulder, Colo., the three-time winner of the Eco-Challenge adventure race. But 275 kilometres was a good start, he said. "I ran into a lot of problems, but I'd do it again right now," he said on Thursday. "You learn a lot by doing it once. I'm more confident about being able to do it now than I ever was before." O'Blenis' attempt began just before nightfall, at about 9 p.m. He pushed his Necky Looksha II kayak off from the old ferry landing in Hudson's Hope. Friend Russ Gardner, a local triathlete, provided ground support, driving to meet the paddler at checkpoints along the way. But O'Blenis was plagued by setbacks from the word go. Water levels and flow rates were lower than expected. Then, just after dark, a heavy fog rolled in and reduced visibility to near zero. He was forced to hug the bank and paddle in the dark all night long, since his lighting system caused more problems than it solved. As dawn broke, O'Blenis started pushing hard to make up time. That likely contributed to a rotator cuff injury in his left shoulder that appeared about 12 hours in and required a two-hour stop for the pain to subside. By the end of the day, his arm was useless. "I had to be literally helped out of the boat at the end. I couldn't put any weight on my left arm," he said. When all was said and done, O'Blenis said he knew that with some luck he could have beaten the record of 349km. Some small consolation came in knowing that Adamson tried to extend his record just a week before O'Blenis' attempt, but only got 235km down the Yukon River, where he set his record before. "So I beat him this year," said O'Blenis, adding that the two are now planning to go head-to-head on the Yukon for the record next year. Whether they do or not, O'Blenis said the things he saw and experienced on his lonely trip down the Peace are things he will never forget. The Northern Lights shone. He paddled past hundreds of beavers and dozens of deer as fish jumped all around his boat. He passed within a couple of boat lengths of a "rather large moose." "There was a 130km stretch where I never saw another human being. I never saw another house. I never saw another road," he said. "It was remarkable." To read more about O'Blenis' journey, check out: www.oocities.org/outrageous_outdoors. |
| From the Kamloops Daily News, Friday September 5th, 2003 By Tracy Watson |
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